What is Biomedia?

Or: Notes on Mules, Irises and other Modified Organisms

The mule: biomedia?

Topiaries

Dogs, Grooming and Companion Species

Eduardo Kac on the history of rabbits

"It is also important to point out that the "GFP Bunny" project breaks no social rule: humans have determined the evolution of rabbits for at least 1400 years."
(Eduardo Kac's GFP Bunny Project Statement)

George Gessert

"I began as a painter. The transition to plant breeding was through painting on Japanese papers, which absorb water and pigments in unpredictable ways. I became fascinated by how ink spots grow on unprepared papers. Watching them grow, and helping them along, I no longer felt like a lone artist, but connected to creative energies that already reside in materials and in the world. From ink spots to plant breeding was only a small step. Plants, like ink spots, generate themselves. My job is to facilitate."
- Artist statement from Paradise Now (http://www.geneart.org/gessert.htm)

Ken Rinaldo: Delicate Balance

Christoph Ebener, Frank Fietzek, Uli Winters: Hamster

Our project aims to establish a symbiosis between a population of hamsters and a group of vehicles with intelligent steering units. For the experiment we are using common golden hamsters. We have chosen a mostly female group to prevent territorial aggression. For the exhibition the hamsters day/night cycle will be reversed to allow spectators to see things happen during the day. The vehicles Each of the vehicles is driven forward by a built-in hamster running wheel. the vehicle is activated whenever a hamster enters it and starts running. Without a hamster inside the vehicles are totally immobile. The micro controller on each vehicle can distinguish light from dark via built in light detectors and uses this information to control its steering system. Mounted on its surface each vehicle has a solar panel to collect electricity and store it in its batteries.
- Project statement (http://www.f-fietzek.de/works/hamster/description.html)

Remo Campopiano, Guy Marsden and Jonathan Schull: Eight Bit Ant Farm

A camera in the ceiling and a camera in the ant cube samples the changes in the gallery and the ant colony. The activities of ants and the activities of people combine and interact to control the illumination of 64 ping pong balls, the bouncing of 64 more ping pong balls, and a computer display reflected and refracted in a hall of mirrors.

Adam Zaretsky: Workhorse Zoo

"In Adam Zaretsky's WorkHorse Zoo, a biological performance art piece shown recently in Salina, Kansas, the exhibit's animals were encouraged to eat each other. Aided by fellow artist Julia Reodica, Mr. Zaretsky spent the week living in an 8-foot-square clean room. His bunkmates were eight of the workhorse organisms of molecular biology: Arabidopsis thaliana (mustard plant), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast), Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm), Danio rerio (zebra fish), Drosophila melanogaster (vinegar fly), Escherichia coli (bacteria), Mus musculus (mice), and Xenopus laevis (African clawed frog)."
- Bio-artist Adam Zaretsky sleeps with the fishes: Using nature to create art. By Wendy Wolfson (emutagen.com/downloads/adamzaretsky.pdf)

Discussion: What is Biomedia?

• Is a mule biomedia? Why or why not?
• "Continuum" vs. "Break"
• Is Thacker's concept of biomedia computationally-biased? (Posthumanist-discourse-biased? New-genre-biased?)